AS the host of long-running television show Mr & Mrs, in which married couples were invited to find out how much they really knew about one another Derek Batey was presented with plenty of challenging situations that would have made a lesser man laugh.

PUBLISHED: PUBLISHED: 00:01, Sat, Feb 23, 2013

Derek Batey presented 500 editions of Mr and Mrs

On one occasion a female contestant put her earphones over her hair, which turned out to be an easily dislodged wig.

“She sat herself down with hair like Ken Dodd and stood up looking like Kojak,” he later recalled. “It was a bit of an awkward moment but it made great viewing.”

On another occasion Batey asked a husband for the name of his wife’s favourite flower.

“Oh that is easy,” the contestant answered at once. “It’s Homepride.”

Such misunderstandings went down well with the audience and in its heyday the show pulled in 11 million viewers.

For many years it was the only nationally syndicated show produced by Border Television.

Batey himself became known as “Mr Border” mainly because of the passion he felt for his home county.

Derek Batey was born in Brampton, Cumbria, and won a scholarship to the local grammar school.

From an early age he knew he wanted to work in showbusiness, visiting Her Majesty’s Theatre, Carlisle, to see comedians such as Robb Wilton and Arthur Askey and at the age of just 12 he bought a ventriloquist’s doll he called Alfie.

After leaving school in 1944 he became articled to a firm of accountants, which would stand him in good stead in later life, while at the same time taking to the boards with his ventriloquism act.

Batey moved into showbusiness proper when the BBC booked his act (on the radio of all mediums) and he went on to become a radio reporter on The Voice of Cumberland and Points North.

His television debut came as a regional compere on Come Dancing before he moved to Border Television in 1960, where he became a current affairs presenter.

He went on to become a producer and assistant programme controller at Border, positions for which his accountancy training made him well suited.

In 1967 Batey started work on the show that made him a household name. He saw a tape of the Canadian version of Mr & Mrs and realised its potential immediately: “I liked it and

decided to run a Border Television version for 13 weeks,” he later said.

The format was simple. One spouse sat in a soundproof booth while the other was required to answer three questions about the other. Then they swapped around.

Batey was canny enough to hang on to the British rights, going on to present 500 episodes of the television show and 5,000 of a version that he devised for the stage, which was

subsequently and affectionately satirised by Stanley Baxter.

In 1972, when the government removed daytime broadcasting restrictions the show went national.

In more recent years he licensed the programme for two relaunches, regionally by HTV in 1995 when the host was Julian Clary, and nationally when Fern Britton and Phillip Schofield took the helm.

Batey acted as a consultant and although none of his other work ever matched the popularity of Mr & Mrs he hosted several more TV shows.

These included Look Who’s Talking, which ran for 12 years from 1973 and aimed to bring some of the biggest stars of the day to Carlisle.

He also fronted the quiz Try For Ten, which ran from 1968 to 1984.

In 1984 Batey was voted Water Rat Of The Year in recognition of his work for charity and he retired four years later.

In recent years the much-loved television star split his time between the holiday resort of Lytham St Annes in Lancashire, Florida and Gran Canaria.